


cut off my wings, i'll still find a way to fly

by Jaybird_Wings



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU where Yinsen lives, Disabled Tony Stark, Gen, Medical Inaccuracies, No Arc Reactor, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Shifting, Protective Pepper Potts, and see the Iron Man legacy, because I haven't seen those and I want him to live, because I was literally just writing in a incoherent mess and didn't edit it, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 18:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14407845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaybird_Wings/pseuds/Jaybird_Wings
Summary: Yinsen lived, the Ten Rings were defeated, and Tony became Iron man, but prices were paid.(Or, Tony doesn’t get a chest full of shrapnel, but loses an eye, goes partially blind in the other, becomes mostly deaf/ hard of hearing, and gets his leg amputated. But he’s not done, and oh, Yinsen is here, too.)





	cut off my wings, i'll still find a way to fly

**Author's Note:**

> -This is another mess, but I wanted to try a slightly non-coherent one shot instead of some long, multi chapter re-write. I've recently re-watched Iron Man 1 and 2, the Avengers, and Age of Ultron so those are the movies I reference and not really any of the others. 
> 
> -Also, it might get a little repetitive? I didn't remember what I had written into this and what was in the rough draft and I didn't read over it again to check it, so eh. 
> 
> -I did some (read: very little) research about what is causing Tony's blindness/ deafness because I didn't want to get too technical about it, since this isn't a school lecture but a story. I don't outright name any causes and it's left purposely vague, so if anybody knows that my reasons are wrong, then yeah. I'm no expert, sorry.

Tony Stark doesn't have an arc reactor in his chest.  
But- Yinsen lived, the Ten Rings were defeated, and Tony still became Iron man, but prices were paid.   
He wakes up, and the world is silent and foggy, and sits up sliding one leg off the bed. He only has one leg, hasn't put his hearing aids in yet, and his sigh isn't something that can be fixed. If you looked carefully enough, you might realize one of his eyes isn't real at all.  
Prices were definitely paid, but Yinsen is alive. So maybe he can live with the consequences if the price was paid for him to live. 

~

Steve Rogers still reads the newspaper, which he's learned is becoming a thing of the past with tacky news reporters and online articles coming out with the flashiest title. He knows it would be easier just to search it up, but he starts gathering up old newspapers to just learn a little about this modern age.  
That's how, days later in a pile of articles, he finds out about Stark Industries and the latest scandals. Or more, Obadiah Stane's corruption and Howard Stark's son being a superhero. He then learns, out of order, then Stark had been kidnapped for months and the moment he came back announced that he was shutting down the weapons department. Steve, coming from the poor family in New York a lifetime ago, thought about all the jobs that people would lose. He sees the intent, of course, but it was incredibly rash. Aside from the fact that Stane was seeking Stark Industries weapons to terrorists.  
Yeah, okay, it's complicated. Everything is complicated about the modern age, like why does an oven have so many different settings?  
Tony Stark had come home with another physicist and engineer, Ho Yinsen, a genius from a small town called Gulmira. When Steve finally succumbed to looking through the internet he found that the tabloids and media went crazy with all kinds of different theories about the man, the theories only getting crazier after the reveal of Iron Man.  
He personally meets the son of his dead friend when they are fighting Loki, as well as Yinsen back at the base.  
"He's my consultant." Stark had said. His ego seemed too big for a consultant, but he got along with the man and sometimes they'd go off into rants with Banner he didn't understand. He was a super soldier, not a super genius.  
But it was odd, how sometimes Stark seemed not to walk straight and steady. Or sometimes he'd bump into something and you heard metal against metal. Sometimes... Stark just was a strange man.  
After the battle of New York, he respects him more. 

~

It didn't start with a bomb sending shrapnel into Tony's chest and a car battery plugged in to keep him moments away from cardiac arrest, and it certainly doesn't end with well wishes of not wasting your life before breathing the last. It’s amazing how a few minutes later guards come, a few more words of Hungarian coming from Yinsen, and the time they get to charge the suit.  
"I'll give you more time." Yinsen gets ready to grab a gun.  
"Oh, hell you're not. The suit is almost charged, just stay behind me."  
Miraculously, he does.  
"You're going to see your family again."  
"My family is dead, Stark. I don't mind dying today to see them again."  
"Yeah, well, my parents are dead, too. I'm not making any vacation plans to see them any time soon- and you're not either."  
But all the fire and explosions, and escaping with Yinsen, Tony realized something is horribly wrong when his leg is bleeding and he can't really feel his toes or move his feet.  
“Don’t die on me.”   
“You’re the one bleeding out, Stark.”    
Instead of wandering lost in the desert, he has a friend lead him to his hometown.  
In Gulmira, they fight off the Ten Rings again and Tony really needs professional medical help. They have to amputate the leg.  
"I don't think… it's just... my hearing. And my left eye."  
Colonel Rhodes finds his long-lost friend in the tiny town and not from a plan searching sand dunes.  
"Yinsen comes, too."  
Rhodey only knows about his leg, and Tony is avoiding doctors like they're the plague. Yinsen examines him.  
"You should invest in hearing aids or it's going to be hard to explain why you can't hear somebody's voice from close by." Stark makes them, but he needs Yinsen's help.  
"I've done all I can to prevent your vision from becoming worst, but you're not getting back the sight you lost... ever."  
Tony Stark needs Yinsen because he is the only person alive who knows the full experience first-hand of what he is suffering. There's the trauma and anxiety and the fear.  
"Why shouldn't I just give up? Go live comfortable on the coast for the rest of my days."  
"I did not think the great Tony Stark would lay down and give up because of such setbacks. Being trapped in a cave didn't stop us, and your mind is still them same. A genius."  
Tony is more determined than ever to be Iron Man. 

~

"Your hair has gotten so long, it's a mess." Pepper chides. She reaches out, and he startles back. He's lost a lot of peripheral vision and his hearing aids can't pick up the high pitch click of her shoes. He'll have to revise them, he's never made anything like it before, in his defense.  
His longer hair is disgusting or like a mullet, it's just different. It covers up the hearing aids and his strange eye (it's fake, he lost his one, he only has one eye left and he can't even see out of it properly)  
"I like it better like this." He slips back on sunglasses because he used to always wear them, but now they hide his eyes.

~

In the cave, he suffers an injury to his eye. Little does Tony Stark know, it'll lead to his partial blindness.  
The injury destroys his other eye, though, and it has to be removed.  
A mixture of trauma from the loud bombs that went off the perhaps an infection or damage from his torture damaged his ears. Ears are so fragile, once you think about it.  
At least there's hearing aids. He's never going to see the same again.  
In the escape his leg was hit along with the metal of the suit cutting into it. The damage was too much to just leave with risk of infection and so on. He still protested, it was his leg after all.  
He walks off that plan with one real leg distantly hearing loud noises staring into a mess, his eyes failing him. He reluctantly takes the wheelchair because it's better than stumbling and revealing everything. He knows he shouldn't keep this secret, but he can't imagine how Stark Industries will react or how the media will take it (worst of all he doesn't want to imagine Pepper and Rhodey's reactions... it scares him, he has nightmares about it alongside ones of burning sand and pain. In his nightmares, he sometimes sees perfectly again. Those memories feel like they're fading too fast.)

~

At the battle of New York, Tony Stark takes a bomb to space and it's terrifying. JARVIS shuts down, he couldn't reach Pepper, and he can't see or hear anything. It's silent, it's cold, and he's pretty sure he's dead. He's conscious long enough to know he's falling. Falling in a hunk of metal unable to see anything.  
The Hulk apparently saves him, and when he wakes up he looks around frantically, trying to make sense of the noises and colors he's seeing.  
"Who wants shawarma?" He says nervously and ends up puking on the sidewalk from anxiety. 

~

Natalie Rushman is apparently Natalia Romanova, agent from SHIELD. Great.  
She can see through everything. "You didn't come back from Afghanistan the same. You lost senses and limbs, I don't know why you wanted to build yourself a metal flying death machine and decide to crawl inside of it and save people. Not really the heroic type."  
"I have someone I promised that I would do something with my life. He nags me daily I think."  
"Yinsen, your consultant."  
Ivan Vanko tries to make god bleed, but Tony Stark isn't dying of palladium poisoning and Yinsen is like, over half his impulse control. The military and media don't get the Iron Man suits, Hammer Industries burns, and he learns about his future in the Avenger Initiative.  
“Agent Romanov’s report of you says that you are still excelling at engineering and operating as Tony Stark and Iron Man after suffering permanent injury. Iron Man is approved for the Avengers Initiative.”  
“Wait, who says I agree?”  
“You’re obviously on some campaign to help the world, so I doubt when the call comes when the world is in peril of ending, you’d just decline the call. Tony Stark, despite your insufferable personality you’re trying to change things.”  
“Don’t you mean despite my disability?”  
“Well, what do you think, Mr. Stark?”  
“None of this could stop me, it isn’t despite what has happened I prevailed. Just because I’m disabled doesn’t mean I’m less capable to be Iron Man or a creator. I’m not an inspiration who has to fight through trials, I’m a freaking superhero who happens to be a few senses and a limb down.”  
“Your spot in the Avengers has never been in peril since we discovered about your disabilities. You’re right, Stark, I’d say even if you’d only become a head you’d somehow still become Iron Man.”  
He knows this, Fury said so himself, and he has Yinsen, Pepper, and Rhodey supporting him.  
But meeting super soldiers, gods, and skilled assassins he’s starting to feel old inadequacy surface up again. He says he’s not hiding from his team, he’s just no telling them either, but as he makes up lies to them team he knows he’s just afraid.  
“Why don’t you tell them?” Romanov asks like the spy that she is.  
“Oh, why don’t you just trust strangers with your biggest weaknesses?”  
“Clint is the greatest marksman out there and he’s deaf.”  
“That’s not really your secret to tell me.”  
“He’s okay with other people. He doesn’t have trust issues like you. They’re not strangers to you, Stark, they’re your team. I’m not going to spill your secrets to them but you should tell them.”

~

He's was in a cave as a prisoner but he was never alone.  
Yinsen explains, "You were knocked out and kidnapped. Almost got hit was a bomb, the shrapnel would have been a mess to fish out of you in this cave. I can't imagine what I'd do to stop the metal. Maybe a magnet." He laughs, because they're freezing and under gunpoint too much and he jokes around to lighten to ever heavy mood.  
"A magnet? Are you serious, how would you power it without being a nuisance." Tony asks.  
"A car battery?" They start laughing freely.  
"No, you'd need something self-sustaining- like the arc reactor. But smaller..."  
Tony Stark realizes how he's going to escape, when he makes a miniature arc reactor in a cave to power his Iron Man suit. Of course, then it wasn't named that, just Mark I.  
Yinsen helped designed Mark II, III, and the rest to come because Tony Stark was inside the Iron Man but the soul was made from the both of them. And honestly, after everything nothing was going to keep him out of the sky.  
~

Barton and Tony get along better after he reveals his disabilities because he's deaf as well. Barton doesn't mention when he finds upgraded hearing aids.  
They whole group is used to the revealed secret, but Barton takes it i casually. He cracks a joke about Stark's vision, but the billionaire ends up laughing hysterically and everyone relaxes.  
Yeah, this was okay. This was great. 

~

Bruce Banner has thought something was a bit off about Tony Stark since he first met him. You know, besides the fact he tried provoking the Hulk out of him and not being terrified- he seemed star struck actually.  
That was certainly odd.  
He's got an inkling he knows, when the man squints his eyes, cuffs his ears, and shifts his weight all into one leg. He won't approach the man if he isn't ready to talk, but he's ready to listen anytime.  
He's not as enthusiastic when Stark ends up talking to Bruce about his life story to be his therapist.  
"I'm- I'm not a therapist, Tony."  
"You know what, when I was fourteen I still had a nanny, can you believe that?"  
He sighs. Whenever the genius is ready, he's ready to listen. 

~

When Tony Stark told the world, he was Iron Man, he told Pepper and Rhodey the true secrets he was hiding.  
"I have a couple of new disabilities."  
"You’re partially blind? Holy hell Tony-"  
"Crap, the leg is prosthetic how did we not notice-?"  
They don’t baby him like he fears and they get used to it pretty nicely. He brags how his fake eyeball is filled with tech, like a camera and sensors and so on, because he’s extra like that, along with his leg. He has an Iron Man leg prosthetic as well, for times when he isn’t wearing the full suit.   
It's nice to trust more people than just Yinsen. Plus, Yinsen is getting along great with his friends. He was worried the man would feel awkward and become an introvert. But no, those closest to him get along. 

~

Pepper lasts longer than a week as CEO, but in the end, quits all the same.  
"What do you think Yinsen will think if I make him CEO?"  
He's a responsible man who helps Pepper out a lot with organizing and planning. Once outside of a cave, Yinsen has a lot less stress and a lot more personality.  
The man still freaks out when they tell him. 

~

Pepper doesn't like Captain America. It's been in her whole life, actually, not just since she's actually gotten to meet him. As a child, he was the face of patriotism and amazement but he just- just bugged her. He was too patriotic to be real, his face covered in all the propaganda crap being fed around. She's pretty sure the details of his missions have been exaggerated- like, how does one unarmed man break into a Hydra base and save hundreds of soldiers? That couldn't be real.  
The blonde man annoyed her with his cheery, mother's boy smile. And he was the face of heroes and power, and he was nothing like the hero Tony was.  
Captain America was a soldier who fought in war. He wanted to fight against the bullies- Tony Stark wanted to save people.  
She can't help herself when she meets him- she just hates him so much. After what Tony had said what Captain told him (He said I wouldn't sacrifice myself for the better good, that I was selfish. I think he's hoping to see Howard in me.)  
After everyone finds out she's terrified they'll judge Tony. But everyone is great- except for Rogers. Maybe it's the time period difference, maybe she's looking at him with biased eyes, but she just feels rage while talking to him.  
Tony is talking to Yinsen right now after his hearing aids malfunctioned and he was almost caught off guard. She sees Captains eyes, they are filled with the worst kind of pity.  
She can't stop herself from saying, “You must see him and think, huh, a pathetic billionaire. I bet you’re asking yourself why there’s a deaf, disabled teammate working with the best of the best?”  
“Ma’am, that’s not-” Ge startles, but she interrupts him.  
“It’s what everybody like you thinks. Maybe you have some half-intended goodness in you that forms itself in pity, and the last thing Mr. Stark needs is pity. He is no sad thing, you’re not a good person for frowning while he can’t see you do it.”  
“Ms. Potts, I didn’t mean any offense. I apologize for whatever it seems I did wrong.”  
She smiles, harsh, like walking out from darkness into the blazing dessert. “Of course, sir. But I’ll let you know, soldier, that we don’t fight wars or start propaganda. Tony Stark fights for what he believes and he’ll give anything- he’ll do anything. His life means nothing to him and I have to watch it while everybody calls him selfish like life is so simple. Tony Stark has a friend, colleague, someone I trust with everything, and his name is Yinsen. Mr. Stark took the brute of the pain and was tortured until he started to break down but he wanted to save Yinsen- because Mr. Stark is a real hero. He doesn’t want to beat up bullies he wants to save people. Yinsen have a box of scraps but he kept Tony alive and they are still here and alive. They are the two best people I know- oh, my apologies, Mr. Rogers. Right after the patriotic Captain America, hero here to save the freaking day and pity others.”  
She didn't know she was capable of being so callous, sarcastic, and full of fiery rage and he's speechless.  
Good.  
Yinsen tries to be the moral compass after she tells Rhodey, Tony, and him, but they all just laugh.  
Tony says he talked with Captain America for real, heart to heart.  
"I told him not to underestimate me. He said he won't. let's see how far this gets, I guess."

~

Natasha starts grumbling in Russian, because of course the idiot Stark decided to fall asleep on the ground. She found him passed out on the floor of a debriefing room. Everybody else was horribly late, except for her. And him, obviously.  
He stirs, even though her presence is as loud as a shadow.   
“Give me a moment.” He draws hastily and trying too hard to be casual, and it’s odd. It isn't him whinnying for another minute of sleep because he starting to stand up. Maybe he doesn’t like being found asleep? She knows for herself that she didn’t like it. Vulnerability.  
But he stumbles up too quickly, and she wants to say something, but he turns with his hands on his hand and head downwards. And she’s lost.  
That’s what prisoners do.  
“Stark what are you doing?” She asks, and he looks up, startled.  
“Oh, that- guess… guess I was still dreaming.” He lies easily enough. There’s a charming smile but he’s shaking. And she knows all the vague information that Stark and Yinsen released about their... time down in Afghanistan but it still unsettles her to see the Tony Stark looking so pale.  
And she doesn’t know what he went through, but she does know it is the material of nightmares.   
He laughs it off for a little long, a little too hard. “I’ll be ready in a moment, Romanov.”  
It's a little sad. 

~

When he flies as Iron Man, he has Jarvis close up on everything so he can see it more clearly. He has the audio blast louder than it should so he can hear just as much if not more than his teammates.  
As Iron Man, it didn't matter if he has two legs because he was flying.  
As when he fell, it was always so much more terrifying. 

~

In this world, Obadiah never stole the arc reactor from his chest, because there was no arc reactor in his chest. But he did paralyze Tony, and in a world where he can barely see, barely hear, barley walk, to just be frozen was a nightmare he was living.  
Yinsen shoots Obadiah with one of the Iron Man hand propulsor and he prevents the man from killing Stark. Nobody dies, Obadiah is put on trial and imprisoned.  
Maybe he won't have trust issues, because yeah, the person who was kind of his father figure in his life since Howard died literally tried to kill him, but somebody more important came in to save his life, and he'll always trust Yinsen.  
(And Yinsen might just be becoming his new father figure) 

~

Tony tells the team his secrets after the exhausting fight against Ultron. The Wanda kid is dead asleep somewhere and Barton is watching over her like a hawk. They both cried a lot, but nobody's going to mention it yet. It's late, and tomorrow Thor's going to leave and the Hulk ran off somewhere, but Bruce already knows. He never told him but he knew, and he was surprisingly okay with it.  
Before the Avengers fully split up, he decides to tell them.  
"Ultron mentioned some confusing things about me, so I'm here to clear things up." He doesn't go into detail about Afghanistan. "Ask Yinsen, he might tell you. But don't bug him too much."  
He goes into deep detail about his disabilities as his telling them how the damage an inflammation and which parts were damaged and caused his sight to go away as if he can separate the facts and the emotions. Fury himself told Tony that he won't be kicked off the Avengers for being disabled, but his teammates might not be so understanding.  
Luckily, they aren't calloused or cruel. Cap is little too quiet, Natasha is just sighing saying "about time" but smiling. Thor is loud and friendly about it, if not a little confused. He's pretty sure Vision already knew, whether from JARVIS's memories or his own deduction, but he's silent but gentle.  
He's ready to trust these people as his team. 

~

The man introduces himself as Yinsen.  
"Do as I do to survive."  
He stands up and holds his hands to the back of his neck. 

He follows.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Spelling errors galore probably, since I didn't really read over this (it's 3:00 am and I have a half a week of homework to make up)
> 
> \- Dude I don't even know what person I'm writing in. Third? I have no idea, it's probably shifting and breaking a ton of grammar rules.
> 
> -(My dislike of Captain America shines through in some bits, sorry not sorry. He sort of redeems himself, though.)
> 
> -Tony Stark has a lot of strong opinions on his disabilities, because disabled doesn't mean he's less capable than his teammates. I am not disabled myself and if I offend anyone please tell me and I can change things. I am also assuming Tony is okay with using the word disabled to describe himself, and I don't know if others know if that's offensive? I don't know, if I cross a line I don't know I'm crossing, please tell me.


End file.
